Melbourne's Best New Spaces of 2017
Honouring the best new additions to Melbourne's design scene this year.
Melbourne's Best New Spaces of 2017
Honouring the best new additions to Melbourne's design scene this year.
There were short-lived rumours that Melbourne's art and hospitality scene had reached peak saturation, but the city quickly put those to bed when its cultural ecosystem grew and flourished once again. It was a year of innovative new restaurants and bars — bigger and taller than ever before — forward-thinking events and bold spaces, pubs and cafes. And they're not all from the big players — independent ventures are flourishing.
Venues have spent more time on their appearances, collaborating with local designers, architects and street artists to create stunning spaces. This prompted the creation of our new category, Best New Space. We've searched far and wide to find our favourite, visually stunning, innovative and sustainable spaces that are accessible to you — including shops, hotels, co-working hubs and public spaces.
At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Sydney to be a better, braver city. And so, these six new spaces, opened in 2017, have been nominated for Best New Spaces in Concrete Playground's Best of 2017 Awards.
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As the apple belt of Australia, Goulburn Valley may have a place in your heart for providing all that thirst-quenching apple juicy goodness, but it’s about to be known for something else too. Mitchelton Winery, one of the region’s prettiest winery destinations, is launching a $16 million luxury boutique hotel so now you can indulge in that second glass and stay overnight. The hotel is nestled in a crook of the Goulburn River and surrounded acres of fertile grape land. Against a lush background, the Mitchelton Hotel and Spa is a striking slice of minimalist heaven for people who like quality, not gaudy, luxury. As well as 58 rooms on offer, they also have a 20-metre infinity pool and spa. The hotel was designed by the good folk at Hecker Guthrie and they’ve gone hard on the natural textures — expect a lot of divine linen and exposed timber — and tied it all together with a dark, muted colour palette.
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Gracing 134 hectares at the Peninsula’s southern tip, this multifaceted family-owned property boasts a 110-seat restaurant, an enormous cellar door and a sprawling sculpture park — the most significant of its kind in the country. With panoramic Western Port Bay views as the backdrop, the sculpture park has debuted with over 50 large-scale works from both Australian and international artists and is set to evolve and grow over the years. Meanwhile, the semi-circular cellar door and restaurant is the work of acclaimed Melbourne architects Jolson, taking pride of place at the property’s highest point and featuring sweeping views across the vineyard, the sculpture park and the Bay. The eatery’s menus, created by Culinary Director Phil Wood (ex-Rockpool and Eleven Bridge) centres around seasonal, regional produce, kicking off with dishes like a beetroot pancake with salmon roe and lemon curd, and a wallaby pie.
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This Victorian boutique hotel takes a weekend on the Mornington Peninsula to a new level of luxury. Jackalope Hotel is smack-bang in the middle of the Peninsula’s wine region in Merricks North, just next to Red Hill. The hotel is the ‘passion project’ of 28-year-old entrepreneur Louis Li, who worked with architecture firm Carr Design Group and Fabio Ongarato Design studio to design the hotel, which is his first. The impressive exterior is quite maintains a modern austerity while naturally fitting into the rolling landscape. At the entrance to the hotel, guests are greeted by a seven-metre-tall sculpture of a Jackalope, the mythical horned rabbit of North American folklore the hotel is named after, which does seem overdone — but then, that also seems to be the point of the hotel’s ‘extravagance to surreal proportions’ mindset.
The 46 rooms offer terrace or vineyard views, with their double-the-size ‘lair’ suites offering the best views in the house. Each room boasts floor-to-ceiling windows, private terraces and hand-crafted bespoke furnishings.
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Each annual iteration of MPavilion sees a new architect commissioned to produce a stunning pavilion, with each designer bringing his or her own unique style and ideas to the project. Behind this year’s design is legendary Dutch ‘starchitects’ Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of architecture firm OMA. And this year’s design matches the duo’s impressive resumes. Described by Gianotten as a “living room looking into the garden of the city”, the architects have designed a pavilion that blurs the lines between inside and out, one that is reconfigurable and obscures the distinction between audience and performer.
Taking its cues from natural amphitheatres, the pavilion is warm, bright and open, and provides the perfect way to take in Melbourne’s skyline. There’s coffee and a bar on-site, making it the ideal place to stop by and see what’s going on.
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You’ve probably already heard of WeWork, the international coworking movement. The company has 230 coworking spaces around the world. In 2016 it opened its first coworking venture in Sydney, and WeWork’s first massive Melbourne space in the London Stores building is now open. And when we say massive, we mean massive. With six floors and space for more than 700 creatives to shack up and compete for funniest coffee mug, it’s set to become the place to work in Melbourne. But don’t expect a cookie-cutter corporate office that will put you to sleep. The interior was designed, interestingly, by graphic designer Sui Yao, and has been decorated by Australia artists Georgia Hill, Mik Shida and FunSkull. With an open-air terrace, and an endless supply of kombucha, nitro cold drip coffee and fruit-infused water, you won’t mind staying late at work.
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The simplest way to describe Kisumé, the luxe Japanese restaurant from lauded restaurateur Chris Lucas, may be this: three storeys of considered grandeur. Its design is impressive — a Chablis bar, a Kisumé Winewall, avant-garde art — and considered attention to detail travels throughout the three levels, from the menu down to the nifty coin-sized refreshment towels that entertainingly expand when you open them. The space, conceived by Australian firm Wood Marsh, unites sophisticated clean lines and a monochromatic palette of buffed metal and leather banquettes. The design doesn’t scream Japanese restaurant, just cleverly hints at it, from the touches of red to Nobuyoshi Araki’s provocative photographs of Japanese women.
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